Living Legends

Most of the Olympic Heights High School students had never heard of the Buffalo Soldiers.

The story of the Triple Nickels never made it into their history books.

The Negro Baseball League wasn't talked about much on the sports channels.

"These people who have come before you have done things we can only imagine," Principal Francis Giblin told students who gathered at the assembly west of Boca Raton on Friday.

The students sat quietly as they listened to encouraging messages from the former players in the Negro Baseball League, former members of the first all-black 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion and descendants of the Buffalo Soldiers.

The Tour of Legends was sponsored by the Pleasant City Family Reunion Committee and Heritage Gallery. The history-makers made stops at two other Palm Beach County high schools earlier in the week.

"We try to sponsor historical events that are not normally known," said the committee's president, Everee Jimerson Clarke.

Roney Pongnon, 17, a junior, knew the term "Buffalo Soldier" from a Bob Marley song, not from his history classes.

Pongnon learned that the name dates to 1866, following the Civil War, when the government established two cavalry regiments made up of black men.

"We got the name Buffalo Soldiers as a sign of respect from the Indians," said Frank Bell Jr., of Tampa, whose great uncle was a member of the 9th Cavalry.

The live history lesson fast-forwarded to 1943 when the U.S. Army established the 555th Parachute Infantry Company, known as the Triple Nickels. The first all-black parachute infantry was an experimental unit.

"They didn't believe a black person could jump out of a plane," said Ted Lowry, 79, of Norwalk, Conn. "We did it to prove them wrong."

Pongnon asked the former paratroopers what it was like serving a country that had discriminated against them.

"We had a mission to do and a job to do. Segregation was just part of it," said Walter Morris, 78, of Palm Coast.

The former baseball players took the microphone next. Former Indianapolis Clowns pitcher Mamie Johnson talked about her experiences being one of three women in the Negro Baseball League.

"There's something I want you all to really remember. ... It's respect," Johnson, 63, of Washington, D.C., said. "I rode on the bus with 26 men and I got the greatest respect in the world from some of the finest men."

The students swarmed to the guests after the talk to ask more questions about what life was like for them and why they did what they did.

"[The school] should do this every year. They don't talk about this stuff in our history books," said Hank Bush, 18, a senior.

That was one reason why these history-makers took part in the legends tour.

"I hope I can instill it in them or have them look at me and say 'I can do anything I want to do,'" Johnson said.

Sarah Lundy can be reached at slundy@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6639.